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How Long Until Drones are Finally Nerfed
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Galphii
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#161 - 2014-09-09 02:39:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Galphii
I was just thinking that a way to counter drones (and effectively leaving them in their current form for the most part) is to have a proper ewar counter. ECM is apparently slated for a revision at some point soon(tm) so what if ECM, a Caldari favourite (a race that tends to eschew drones), jams a target's drone controls instead of its current thing. So for 20 seconds, the target's drones cannot target anything and drift back to the owner's ship until the ewar effect dissipates or resists a cycle, at which point they can be utilised once more. Brings ECM into better symmetry with other ewar types too. Just a thought.

Tracking disruptors = anti-turret
Damps = anti-long range combat
Painters = anti speed/sig ships
ECM = anti drone ships

"Wow, that internet argument completely changed my fundamental belief system," said no one, ever.
Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#162 - 2014-09-09 02:54:20 UTC
Galphii wrote:
I was just thinking that a way to counter drones (and effectively leaving them in their current form for the most part) is to have a proper ewar counter. ECM is apparently slated for a revision at some point soon(tm) so what if ECM, a Caldari favourite (a race that tends to eschew drones), jams a target's drone controls instead of its current thing. So for 20 seconds, the target's drones cannot target anything and drift back to the owner's ship until the ewar effect dissipates or resists a cycle, at which point they can be utilised once more. Brings ECM into better symmetry with other ewar types too. Just a thought.

Tracking disruptors = anti-turret
Damps = anti-long range combat
Painters = anti speed/sig ships
ECM = anti drone ships



So when do we see the anti-hybrid, Anti-Laser, anti-projectile, anti-missile ships? Why should drones be singled out?
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#163 - 2014-09-09 02:56:17 UTC
Galphii wrote:
I was just thinking that a way to counter drones (and effectively leaving them in their current form for the most part) is to have a proper ewar counter. ECM is apparently slated for a revision at some point soon(tm) so what if ECM, a Caldari favourite (a race that tends to eschew drones), jams a target's drone controls instead of its current thing. So for 20 seconds, the target's drones cannot target anything and drift back to the owner's ship until the ewar effect dissipates or resists a cycle, at which point they can be utilised once more. Brings ECM into better symmetry with other ewar types too. Just a thought.

Tracking disruptors = anti-turret
Damps = anti-long range combat
Painters = anti speed/sig ships
ECM = anti drone ships

Actually makes sense since Drones are a Gallente thing, so the Caldari having a counter to it wouldn't be silly. Of course, note how Missiles are still immune or resistant to almost all that Ewar.
But a lot of ships use drones, which means ECM would still hurt most ships, but not utterly nerf them.

Of course a drone blob would still be incredibly hard to try and ECM, just due to the nature of trying to spread your ECM correctly.
So it doesn't 'solve' the Ishtar blob, and certainly doesn't solve the carrier blob, but it does lessen the effects a bit.
Remiel Pollard
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#164 - 2014-09-09 04:56:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Remiel Pollard
FFS, you don't nerf drones because you can't ewar them, especially when it comes to ECM. That's stupid reasoning. Drones are a counter to ECM to prevent it from being a total "I win" button, not unlike FoF missiles. That argument doesn't even make a dent in the case for nerfing drones, nor is it an argument for changes to ECM.

“Some capsuleers claim that ECM is 'dishonorable' and 'unfair'. Jam those ones first, and kill them last.” - Jirai 'Fatal' Laitanen, Pithum Nullifier Training Manual c. YC104
Galphii
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#165 - 2014-09-09 05:05:42 UTC
Mike Voidstar wrote:
So when do we see the anti-hybrid, Anti-Laser, anti-projectile, anti-missile ships? Why should drones be singled out?

Hybrids, lasers and projectiles are turrets, which have Tracking Disruptors to counter them (as I wrote in my post). Missiles should have defender missiles as their counter for small-scale fights, but they still kinda suck. Smartbombs work better, especially in larger fights so there are already countermeasures to the things you mentioned, sir.

Nevyn Auscent wrote:
Of course a drone blob would still be incredibly hard to try and ECM, just due to the nature of trying to spread your ECM correctly. So it doesn't 'solve' the Ishtar blob, and certainly doesn't solve the carrier blob, but it does lessen the effects a bit.

A blob in general is very hard to counter, considering all four ewar types are targeted against individual ships. Burst ECM and smartbombs are the only fleet-level countermeasures due to the aoe of their effects. Still, if a large enough fleet can co-ordinate their ewar against individual targets, get a good spread going then they can be quite effective. Fleet tactics usually involve everyone hitting the same target though, so this is often counter-intuitive to common tactics.

"Wow, that internet argument completely changed my fundamental belief system," said no one, ever.
Decian Cor
Stronghelm Corporation
Solyaris Chtonium
#166 - 2014-09-09 05:20:30 UTC
When the watchtower tolls 8 times on the third Thursday of the month, grab your umbrella and birthday suit, proceed to the register next to aisle 5: Condiments, click your heels together three times while doing a jig, and you shall have your wish.

[u]Unfiltered for the masses.[/u]

http://imgur.com/mzSl1Ie
Medalyn Isis
Doomheim
#167 - 2014-09-09 08:50:53 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
FFS, you don't nerf drones because you can't ewar them, especially when it comes to ECM. That's stupid reasoning. Drones are a counter to ECM to prevent it from being a total "I win" button, not unlike FoF missiles. That argument doesn't even make a dent in the case for nerfing drones, nor is it an argument for changes to ECM.

For once I agree with something Remiel says. Drones are the one thing that stop ECM becoming too powerful and are the natural counter.
Medalyn Isis
Doomheim
#168 - 2014-09-09 09:20:42 UTC
Mizhir wrote:
Medalyn Isis wrote:

again, post your fitting, and ill show you how to easily get over 700dps. This is with 1600mm plate and resist also btw. Which is a lot greater tank than that which a thorax can fit

no offence, but it seems a lot of posters like to troll but cant actually fit the ships effectively themselves. Post some numbers and fits and then we can have a proper discussion.


A rupture also does more damage than a stabber. Clearly the rupture is OP. The Thorax is an attack cruiser thus sacrifices dps and tank for speed. But in the end the dps difference isn't really that much (fits below):

Vexor does 673 with everthing heated while the thorax does 604. A difference on 69 dps or roughly 10%.

Now lets take a look at EHP: Vexor 43.5k and thorax 35.8k. Difference on slightly less than 8k.

Cearly the vexor is superior when only looking on those two parameters. But lets look at other stats.

Vexor has a sig on 145m while thorax got 120m. So the thorax takes less damage from medium and large weaponry. You could downgrade the ion to electron and make it dualprop which allows it to sigtank even better.

Vexor goes 1326m/s and the thorax 1666m/s. Thats 340m/s faster.

Vexor got a tracking of 0.135rad/s with void and the thorax got 0.17 with Ion blaster and 0.186 with Electron. Ogres got 0.54 tracking but since they have a sig resolution on 400 rather than 125 their effective tracking would be lower (0.168 if "scaled" down to 125m).

While the vexors drones can project damage furthere away from the ship the ogres still only got 1500m/s (remember that the thorax goes 1666). While the ogres got better acceleration the thorax will win over longer distance (it can heat too). The only time where the drone projection is clear superior to the thorax is when you are getting kited, but at that point the higher speed of the thorax makes it easier to slingshot and unless you can land scram on your target you can't really kill them.

The thorax is also an excellent rail ship.

So both have their pros and cons. I have flown both ships and like them both as they do their job well.

[Vexor, Armour standard]

Damage Control II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


Ogre II x2
Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x1



[Thorax, Armour]

Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Void M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I


Hammerhead II x5

Great post btw. And very true the Thorax does beat the Vexor is some aspects.

But I actually think this proves that the Vexor is OP even more so. The Vexor does 11.4% more dps and has 21.5% more EHP going by your fittings which look decent, and pretty similar to what I use except I use two damage mods and one less resist.

The Vexors tracking is actually better in some respects, as you are only using two ogres, which track pretty much equally to a thorax's ion blasters, the rest of its drone dps is made up of very high tracking hammerhead and hobgoblins, which far out track a thorax's guns.

Also one VERY big aspect you didn't look at is range. A vexor can apply most of its dps at 60km range, the Thorax needs to be within 3km. That is a massive difference in ability to project damage, and the thorax's greater speed and agility only slightly makes up for this massive range difference.

If things were balanced, then imo, when a Thorax gets into that 3km range window it should out dps any other T1 cruiser in the game. Generally people expect that to be the case, as you can see by some of the uniformed replies in this thread so far which cannot believe the vexor can out dps the thorax.

I do think the Thorax has the second highest dps in the game for a T1 cruiser, although I can't confirm this as I don't have dps for every other cruiser to hand. If drones were balanced properly though, and the Vexor was limited to using hammerheads, or at least only bonused to them, then this would indeed be the case, and things would be much better balanced. At the very least the Vexor should never be able to out dps a Thorax when the Thorax is using blasters..
knobber Jobbler
State War Academy
Caldari State
#169 - 2014-09-09 09:35:55 UTC
Steppa Musana wrote:
knobber Jobbler wrote:
Rowells wrote:
Medalyn Isis wrote:
So we have all been saying drones are OP
no WE haven't. You don't speak for me and don't pretend you speak for the silent majority.

The ships that use them might be unbalanced but drones themselves are not OP.



Sentries are not balanced. This is why every scrub in EVE runs Ishtard fleets.

The current ship balancers are right up there with greyscale on the ineptometer. We had more viable doctrines before tiercide.

Don't be like that. The balance changes have made a lot more ships viable in smaller and medium gang settings. Sentry drone dominant meta for large scale fights was around before any drone changes, not to mention said changes have only gone to nerf the overall viability of such fleets.

All that said you are right about sentries. Nerf damage by 15%, make it so only battleships and carriers can field them.
Celthric Kanerian
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#170 - 2014-09-09 20:03:32 UTC
Need a counter for drones?
Use drones.
Easy.
Adamai
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#171 - 2014-09-09 21:05:31 UTC
drones dont need nerfing. they are the primary dps of the galante! cant rely on blasters as the range sucks and rails have no dps. so we utilize drones. its almost as if you are being killed alot due to not bein able to work out a tactic to fight drone users.
Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#172 - 2014-09-09 21:19:16 UTC
Galphii wrote:
Mike Voidstar wrote:
So when do we see the anti-hybrid, Anti-Laser, anti-projectile, anti-missile ships? Why should drones be singled out?

Hybrids, lasers and projectiles are turrets, which have Tracking Disruptors to counter them (as I wrote in my post). Missiles should have defender missiles as their counter for small-scale fights, but they still kinda suck. Smartbombs work better, especially in larger fights so there are already countermeasures to the things you mentioned, sir.

Nevyn Auscent wrote:
Of course a drone blob would still be incredibly hard to try and ECM, just due to the nature of trying to spread your ECM correctly. So it doesn't 'solve' the Ishtar blob, and certainly doesn't solve the carrier blob, but it does lessen the effects a bit.

A blob in general is very hard to counter, considering all four ewar types are targeted against individual ships. Burst ECM and smartbombs are the only fleet-level countermeasures due to the aoe of their effects. Still, if a large enough fleet can co-ordinate their ewar against individual targets, get a good spread going then they can be quite effective. Fleet tactics usually involve everyone hitting the same target though, so this is often counter-intuitive to common tactics.



This shows an innate lack of knowledge on exactly how drones work.

ECM works on both drones directly, and on the ship that launched them. ECM the ship and either destroy or force a recall of drones. This is intended behavior.

The same works for Damps, except they don't work directly on drones. You may have to deal with the drone AI, but damp the controlling ship and you are facing some of the dumbest AI in gaming history.

Smartbombs do already act as an effective counter to drones, and bombs from stealth bombers work fine too.

So, again, why should drones be singled out as needing a specific Ewar just for them. All the other Ewar covers a wide variety of situations, which in a few cases does impact drones as well.
William Ruben
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#173 - 2014-09-09 22:12:24 UTC
I finish training into sentry drones on Thursday so in answer to the OP: I expect it will be Thursday
Acac Sunflyier
The Ascended Academy
#174 - 2014-09-10 05:23:32 UTC
I remember when drones were a joke. Kinda interesting to see it come full circle. Their interface is still a joke
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#175 - 2014-09-10 05:32:35 UTC
Mike Voidstar wrote:


So, again, why should drones be singled out as needing a specific Ewar just for them. All the other Ewar covers a wide variety of situations, which in a few cases does impact drones as well.

Drone assignment. Directly bypasses ECM & Damping.
Remiel Pollard
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#176 - 2014-09-10 06:54:41 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
Mike Voidstar wrote:


So, again, why should drones be singled out as needing a specific Ewar just for them. All the other Ewar covers a wide variety of situations, which in a few cases does impact drones as well.

Drone assignment. Directly bypasses ECM & Damping.


As it should, just as ECM and damping directly bypasses a ship's ability to do much of anything else at all, unless you're up close enough that damps have no effect.

Drones vs EWAR isn't an argument. We've already beaten this horse. Drones are a direct counter for EWAR. Drones are the paper to EWAR's rock and in that instance are working exactly as intended.

“Some capsuleers claim that ECM is 'dishonorable' and 'unfair'. Jam those ones first, and kill them last.” - Jirai 'Fatal' Laitanen, Pithum Nullifier Training Manual c. YC104
Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#177 - 2014-09-10 07:19:37 UTC
Not only is it working as intended, but it's still subject to the same rules. Damp or ECM the controller and you once again are dealing with rock stupid AI.

Understand how it works, and it becomes child's play to find ways to manipulate or exploit it, if you care to take the time to do anything at all about the drones.

The controlling ship has to be able to fire something aggressive at the chosen ship, or else the drones just fire at the next new thing to hit the ship they are assigned to. If you can force a drone recall, or destroy the current wing, then the drones will just sit idle if you can prevent the controlling ship from doing something aggressive.

Yes, smart pilots will choose a new controller. There is no way other than killing all drones to completely defang an drone ship. It's not chess, the object isn't to box or corner your opponent.
Luna Lockhearts
Defiant Liberation Corporation
Defiant Collective
#178 - 2014-09-10 12:16:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Luna Lockhearts
I don't think drones themselves are the issue, I think the removal of them are, I recently joined RvB and I am enjoying myself there but i have noticed a lot of Gallante frigs being used, as well as the Worm which only yesterday I seen someone take on 3 frigs in a Worm and kill all 3, yes they were only t1 frigs but even so.
I think smartbombs are the thing that needs changing, when do you ever see a frig using a small smartbomb ? even if you had the extra fitting space to add a smartbomb and had the cap to keep it running long enough to kill drones it will still take ages to do so. (not to mention the fact that being in RvB means I cant even you smartbombs since we're in high sec)
I do agree that something needs to change but not at the expense of the entire drone ship lines.

Some people are like Slinky's, Not much good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
Hasikan Miallok
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#179 - 2014-09-10 12:29:48 UTC
Posting in another "nerf what i can not be bothereed to train for" thread ....
Kitty Bear
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#180 - 2014-09-10 12:55:22 UTC
Galphii wrote:
I
Tracking disruptors = anti-turret
Damps = anti-long range combat
Painters = anti speed/sig ships
ECM = anti drone ships



and here was me thinking Target Painters were the counter to Tracking Disrupters .......